somersetadvisory.com

What It Is

Somerset Advisory is a fee-only fiduciary wealth management firm in the United States, with offices in Birmingham, Beaufort, and Charlottesville, and states that it can serve clients nationwide. Its focus is not payments or acquiring, but complex financial planning, investment management, tax, estate, and retirement planning for families, women, business owners, and clients with multigenerational wealth.

Core Capabilities

The firm highlights its proprietary CLARITIES fiduciary planning framework, which brings cash flow, investments, tax, insurance, estate planning, family legacy, and long-term stewardship into a single process. Its services cover financial planning, wealth management, investment management, financial coaching, tax planning, estate planning, and retirement planning. Its materials repeatedly emphasize collaboration with CPAs, attorneys, business advisors, and existing professional teams, making it suitable for complex situations such as business sales, inheritance, philanthropy, families with special needs, divorce, or widowhood. On the investment side, the firm says it uses an active management approach, works with professional money managers it has partnered with for many years, and allocates most clients to alternative assets.

Pricing and Fees

The website states that it is a fee-only fiduciary firm and explains in its FAQ that it may charge fixed, transparent planning fees. Ongoing investment management clients pay based on a percentage of assets under management. However, the site does not provide specific fixed fees, AUM fee tiers, minimum fees, custody fees, or costs related to alternative assets, so fee transparency remains insufficient.

Pros and Cons

Its strengths include clear positioning, with particular emphasis on women clients and families in transition; a fairly comprehensive service scope that integrates tax, estate, investment, and cash flow planning within one framework; and explicit use of fiduciary and fee-only language, which in theory helps reduce commission-driven conflicts. Its drawbacks are the lack of disclosed regulatory registration numbers, licensing details, portfolio performance, risk metrics, and detailed fee schedules. The initial implementation of CLARITIES may also take as long as 12–24 months, making it less lightweight for clients who only want quick, one-off advice.

Who It’s Best For

It is better suited to U.S. families, women, business owners, entrepreneurs, executives, heirs, retirees, and clients with intergenerational wealth transfer needs who want a long-term advisory relationship and are facing increasing financial complexity. It is not suitable for users looking for payment gateways, cross-border collections, merchant accounts, wallets, or API-based financial infrastructure.

China Access

The materials do not provide information on access from mainland China, Chinese-language services, cross-border account opening, or services for non-U.S. residents, so china_access can only be assessed as unknown.